Aaron: Working with Depression
Q: Why am I depressed, Aaron? What do I do about it? If my learning doesn’t have to be painful, why is it painful? I think I’m paying attention, but there’s still so much pain.
My dear one, you are light. Each thing seeks its own kind: light seeks light, darkness seeks darkness, joy seeks joy, and sorrow seeks sorrow. When you’re fully able to enter into the experience of yourself as light, everything seems lighter around you. You know yourself to be part of that Ground of all love, call it God or whatever you prefer.
If you have a beautiful flowering houseplant with lush green leaves, and you put it in a dark closet and forget about it for several weeks, except to open the door and pour in some water, what happens to it? Will it thrive? Each of you takes yourself for hours or even for days at a time and shuts yourself off into a dark closet. Your fear and anger are walls that enclose you and shut off the light. Then you ask me, “Why am I depressed?” How can the light get through?
What is this darkness? Your fear is opaque. It assumes solidity. You find it so hard to have compassion for this dear being who is afraid. When fear arises, it is followed by judgment, “I shouldn’t be afraid.” Then the fear is suppressed and you move into anger or greed with the same, “I shouldn’t.…” By this time the light is thoroughly walled out.
It is not the emotions that bring the darkness, but your reaction to them. To feel heavy emotions and have compassion for the being that you are, in pain, does not block light but invites it. To feel heavy emotions and dwell in those without awareness shuts out all light as effectively as if you were the plant in a closet.
Connection reconfirms light. Separation enhances darkness. When judgment against feelings arises, it separates you from yourself and, of course, from the light.
Can you begin to see the depression not as a cause but as a symptom, so that you begin to recognize the process? “I’m depressed, I need light.” Perhaps that recognition can lead you to see the walls of fear, anger, shame, jealousy, judgment, or greed with which you’ve surrounded yourself and to ask yourself, “How can I open some window shades and allow light in here?” You can do that, but in order to do it, first you’ve got to recognize that the shades have been drawn, that the walls have gone up. For many of you, that is the most difficult thing to do. The judgment is so thick. The darkness offers an illusion of a safe hideaway.
Why is it so difficult? If we are beings of light that yearn for the full experience of light, what is this attraction to darkness? In your pain, you seek that which will confirm your feelings. When anger arises in you, and you judge that in yourself, saying, “I’m no good, I shouldn’t be feeling anger,” that “I’m no good” seeks to confirm itself through experience. It actually makes you reach out and find those experiences that prove, “Yes! See? I really am no good.”
Anger protects you from the pain of feeling judged and from all your self-judgment.
As you judge your heavy emotions and deepen the anger at yourselves, the walls get thicker. Not even a glimmer of light can shine within.
It is as though you hide in a safe tunnel, putting up strands of protection in the doorway. They wall out all that you fear would harm you, and thus serve to defend, but they also wall out the light. For example, feeling another’s judgment, you move into anger. Anger protects you from the pain of feeling judged and from all your self-judgment. It separates you from yourself and from the one who judged, and it blocks the light.
You can begin to dissolve these protective strands of anger, greed, and so forth. You must do it with utmost gentleness, recognizing that each has been placed for the purpose of defense. You need not tear them all down and stand naked and vulnerable in the blazing sun. That action would be brutal. Instead, slowly allow yourself to acclimate to the light so that it warms but does not burn.
Work gently. Lift one item at a time and examine it. Regard the wall. “What is this fear? What is this jealousy? Do I still need this judgment? Might I not lift it from the doorway and leave it here beside me? I can replace it if necessary, and I can see how it feels to allow the light to enter, the light of truth.”
There is desire for the light. Is there also fear of it? Do you still cling to the darkness for protection? Do you hide your soft and vulnerable heart behind anger, jealousy, or greed? What if you really are as good and as beautiful as I keep saying you are?
It becomes less painful to believe the light to be unattainable than to reach out yet again and experience defeat.
Many of you felt a bit of fear as I said that. Can you start to see what that fear is about? You have each experienced the pain of rejection and defeat so many times. There is such yearning for the light. The thickness of the armor in which you have imprisoned the heart bespeaks the sensitivity of the heart. How badly it has been wounded to seek such heavy protection. How soft and vulnerable it is.
It becomes less painful to believe the light to be unattainable than to reach out yet again and experience defeat. It is the process of “You can’t fire me; I quit.” You defend yourself by wrapping yourself yet again in your fear and wearing it as a shield.
Each of your higher selves yearns to move fully back into that light, to re-experience that which truly is your birthright. And yet, each of you knows, with deep wisdom, that you have work to do, and that’s why you’re here. So you move into a misunderstanding in which you see the light, and the very pain of your yearning causes you to push it away. It is what the Christian mystics call “the dark night of the soul.” You create situations to prove to yourself that you are not good enough to be in the light — the precious light which you so desire and without which you wither away. It is a very poignant human predicament.
Depression is a symptom of the claustrophobia of that angel.
Can you begin to notice the arising of depression and see it as a symptom of yearning to move back fully into the knowledge of connection with light, rather than as proof of your unworthiness to know light? There’s a world of difference in that, because when you see it as a symptom of your love, that immediately opens the window shade, maybe just a crack, but enough to let sunlight come in. It reminds you of who you are.
Let us explore other factors in depression. Barbara received a letter from a friend who said that every morning when she wakes up, she does a number of things to remind herself that she is an angel here in a human spacesuit. Depression is a symptom of the claustrophobia of that angel. One feels hemmed in by this spacesuit at times. It feels unworkable. Nothing is as easy as it should be.
Somewhere beyond the conscious mind are real memories of the ease of moving in the light body and the joy of being fully present in the light. Of course incarnation feels claustrophobic. Can such discomfort become a deep reminder of who you are and lead you to appreciate the perfection of the journey? Even depression, fear, and anger are gifts to help you learn love.
There’s one more aspect of depression I’d like to talk about. When you seek to confirm a heavy judgment you’ve laid on yourself and move into increasingly more difficult and painful situations, the heaviness of your anger invites in negativity. There are beings of positive and negative polarization on all planes. And there are mischievous spirits, not beings that are very negative, but beings on the astral plane that are a bit bored. They’re young beings, for the most part and they like to participate in chaos. Your negativity is an invitation to them.
There are also beings that are deep in misunderstanding and feed on anger and pain. Your anger and fear invite them in. So, when you move into depression, it’s like opening the door and saying to all the negativity, “Come in, welcome! We’re having a party.” This is no different than seeking out another depressed friend when you feel depressed so that you can feed each other’s depression.
I’m not suggesting that you say, “I won’t feel depressed; I’m not going to let in negativity,” because that in itself is negative. When you’re feeling depressed, somewhere you have got to open a window shade. That which knows the experience of depression is not depressed. That awareness never becomes depressed. Where does identification lie, in the consciousness that is depressed and sees this depression as self or in the awareness that observes with kind, spacious attention? One way to open the shade is to deepen presence, to invite awareness to watch the depressed self and not be caught with self-identification in such a feeling.
Humor helps. Perhaps you could have a set of Groucho Marx glasses and mustache and you could go and look at yourself in the mirror. Just stand there and stare at yourself for a few minutes until, finally, you have to laugh. “Am I taking myself too seriously?” Anything to lighten the moment, to begin to penetrate the density of those walls that you’re pulling around yourself, walls that separate you from the light.
Humans have short memories. As soon as the light is cut off, it’s gone. It’s so hard to remind yourself, “I really am an angel in an earthsuit, and I really am as connected to spirit as I am to this body.”
Think about the ways that you can bring light in when you’re emerged in darkness. Each of you will find different ways that will work for you. One may find it wonderful to go outside in the sunshine, take a walk, and reconnect with trees, grass, and flowers. Another may find an outlet by listening to music, or exercising your body in rhythmic ways: dancing, doing yoga, playing ball. A third may seek loving companionship. There’s no one best outlet.
When you feel depressed, please remind yourself of the flowering houseplant that has been put in the closet. Ask yourself, “Wouldn’t I, in compassion, bring those flowers out into the sunshine? Can I not do at least that much for myself?”
About the Channel
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Barbara Brodsky is the channel for the spirit, Aaron, a sixth density entity who has evolved through the earth plane, and beyond the need for further incarnation. Eight books of Aaron’s teachings have been published. The newest is Presence, Kindness, and Freedom. She is also a dharma teacher in the Buddhist and non-dual traditions, and an Interfaith Minister. Barbara and Aaron lead meditation retreats and spiritual inquiry workshops worldwide. In Ann Arbor, Barbara is the founding and guiding teacher of Deep Spring Center, www.deepspring.org which offers non-denominational spiritual teachings and practice. She has been practicing meditation since 1960 and teaching since 1989. Her teaching draws from dual roots in the Buddhist and Quaker traditions. Her Buddhist training is in the Theravadin and Dzogchen traditions. She became totally deaf in 1972; living with silence has greatly influenced her life and teaching, as have years of active involvement in nonviolent action for social change. |